Forty-Eight Hours
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: Two days remain before Malcolm is to join his Section 31 team. He has time on his hands, and the clock is ticking...
1. Chapter 1

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.**

**This story has not been beta-read, so any mistakes in it are mine.**

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><p><span><strong>First Twenty-Four<strong>

So this is what freedom feels like…

After so long Malcolm's not sure quite what to do with it; or with himself for that matter. He lifts his head and sniffs the wind off the Bay, with its familiar tang of the sea.

Two days, then. Forty-eight hours, in which to lose himself; to take his farewells of what's left of the life he knew, before he's absorbed into a team.

He doesn't know who they are. It doesn't matter. They will be his comrades; probably not his friends, but they'll depend on him for their lives just as he will on them for his.

Maybe some of them will die.

Maybe all of them will die.

And nobody will give a damn.

It gives him a bitter sense of liberty – of irresponsibility, almost.

The dawn, he thinks, is singularly beautiful. You see so many colours in the sea as the sun comes up, constantly changing. Today there's just a hint of a breeze, enough to frill the rim of each crest with foam. He stands on the foreshore, hands in pockets, and feels the wind pushing against his face. He hasn't bothered to button up his coat or wrap his scarf more tightly, so the chill is noticeable, but he hopes that inside and outside will soon equalise and he will no longer notice either, ever again.

Down on the beach, someone throws a stick for a dog. The animal chases joyfully after it; an Afghan hound or something like it, with long hair that flies like banners in the breeze as it gallops.

He shudders a little and turns away. He can taste fur in his mouth, and blood.

The memories catch him this way sometimes. Mostly he's learned to control them. After all, the fur and the blood made him what he is. Now he's fit only for the company of others who've _been there_ … or at least understand, insofar as anyone can who hasn't. He doesn't know if any or all of his new comrades will have done; he will know, though, within minutes of meeting them, and he himself will be equally known.

He walks into the city, which is beginning to shake itself awake for a new day. The level sun is bright on countless windowpanes, and the trees are just starting to deck themselves in new leaf.

With no sense of purpose he boards a tram. Within the first thirty seconds he's divested a fellow-traveller of his wallet, which after some deliberation he replaces, though in a different pocket. It might have been faintly amusing to go through the charade of pretending to have picked it up from the floor, but he can't be bothered. They've taught him all the tricks of the trade, and these are the simplest and the cleanest. In three days' time he won't be playing them for a joke on hapless passers-by; he'll be playing them for real.

Sooner or later, whenever it suits his master's purposes, he will kill.

He wonders how it'll feel. It's difficult to imagine. He's learned all the techniques, of course, and it's not as though creatures haven't died with his teeth in them before, but he suspects that being singlehandedly responsible for the end of a sentient creature will be somehow more personal. It would be a comfort of sorts if he could believe he'll feel remorse, but he fears that that particular sentiment is long gone – something he left behind on that planet that has no name, much as one would leave an outworn coat. Its lack paints him as something less than human.

Predator or prey.

It wasn't what he envisaged when he set out from his native land, but then his life has changed almost beyond recognition in the past year. The credit chip in his trouser pocket would put him on a plane home if he wished, but that's the last place he wants to go; there's nothing for him there. Briefly he contemplates booking a trip into the mountains – he likes mountains, and his snowboarding skills will be getting rusty – but on reflection the clean simplicity of the Sierra Nevada is too profound a contrast to his soul. The mountains represent so much that he is not, but would once have liked to be.

It's a price he accepted long ago, but there are still days when he realises how high it is.

Still, he craved excitement, and soon he will have it, but now he has two days to spend as he will. He gets off at a stop he doesn't know and goes wandering; he finds some excitement briefly in an alley, but it doesn't keep him for long. The kid who'd had ambitions on the contents of his pockets is left groaning behind the dustbins with three broken fingers and several broken ribs, and maybe it's just because it's a pity to spoil a lovely morning that the knife he'd brought along to the party is left beside him instead of in him. Perhaps the encounter will teach the youngster wisdom but it probably won't, and _quite frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn._

There's a church a little further on. It would seem the diocese has funds to spare, or maybe the last one burned or fell down, because its newness stands out among its unlovely surroundings so starkly that it's an even bet that very few of the locals set foot in it.

He moves to pass on, but somehow his feet take him inside.

The architecture is modern, but the designer understood light all too well. The radiance of the early morning spills across the floor like the promise of redemption, while the clean, simple lines of the structure itself seem almost to float in the brilliance.

It has nothing to say to him, or he to it.

Were this the dusty brown bosom of St Matthew's, things might have been different. He feels absurdly that, had the Lady Chapel contained a seated _Madonna della_ _sedia_, the temptation to lay his head in her lap and sob his heart out might have been beyond resistance. So it's probably just as well that the statue there is safely and respectably and indubitably Anglo-Saxon, and offers no tempting and capacious lap.

He wanders out into the nave again. The pews look like birchwood, but in reality they're made of some synthetic material that will resist the attentions of penknives in bored fingers. They're comfortable enough, though. He sits in one and stares silently at the altar, which is bathed in irrelevant but beautiful light. He wants to talk about Helen but can find nothing to say, and isn't sure anyone would be listening anyway.

If there were any point in such a thing, he'd wish that things were different. He'd wish that he could stand vigil here, purifying his soul in preparation for taking up a noble cause – or at least (his mouth twists into a brief, bitter half-smile) a worthwhile career. As it is, there are a number of the tools of his future trade that he could lay on the altar, but a sword isn't among them; a packet of C-4 explosive would probably look showy, while at the other end of the scale a garrotte – well, it's not nice.

So perhaps not.

There have been faint sounds of occupation in the vestry, and presently the door opens to disgorge a lone man whose black cassock identifies him instantly. The glance around the church is probably as natural to him as breathing, taking inventory of what's still intact and who's come in. The single quiet worshipper seated motionless in a pew doubtless receives an assessing glance, but other than that the place is deserted, and the priest peacefully sets about his preparations for the morning service. It's probably inevitable that the church vessels are made of the same synthetic birchwood as the pews, but their simplicity has a beauty of its own.

There's a confessional in one corner. With a second twist of amusement, this one bitterer than gall, Malcolm imagines himself in it. It would be a short interview, at a guess.

_Bless me, Father, for I am about to embark on a life of sin…_

'No absolution for that one, son. And personally I wouldn't bank on having time for any last-minute repentance, either, not in your job. Get out, and stop wasting my time.'

He carefully avoids eye contact as the priest brings a pitifully small number of hymnbooks down the aisle to place by the door for a congregation that'll probably struggle to achieve double figures.

Nevertheless, there must have been something …

The light, steady steps slow a little. Before he quite understands what's happening there's a hand resting lightly on his hair, and a voice murmuring words for which a classical education comes in handy…

_"In manus tuas, Domine…"_

Horror seizes him. As though he were Satan and the words holy water, he dodges away from beneath the blessing hand and runs, vaulting over the pews in his desperation to escape the place because he can't escape himself.

_"Into Your hands, O Lord…"_

He does a little shopping – he owns nothing but what he's standing up in – then buys alcohol and checks into a hotel. He spends the rest of the afternoon drinking steadily and wishing it had been he instead of Helen who had died on the bio-bed in the laboratory, because he's a fucking coward who ran away from a stranger who somehow saw too much, and far too clearly.

Apart from scaring him silly, the episode has stirred another unwanted memory of a stranger's kindness. Grenham had obviously taken his advice. Malcolm tilts the bottle in a mocking toast to the doctor who'd been utterly unfitted to his job, whose compassion had been surplus to the Section's requirements. He hopes the man's still alive but has never asked. It would have been an obvious precaution to have modified his memories suitably, but you never know; maybe whatever leverage Harris obviously had on him to bring him into the Section's service might be thought enough to keep his mouth shut afterwards.

Compassion had not been among the qualities of those who'd had the supervising of him when the doctor had gone. They did their job efficiently and without passion, re-educating him into his humanity where such a thing was required. They never forgot what he'd been, or allowed him to forget either. He'd remained utterly isolated, festering in his own unforgiving silence.

The walls that have been around him for as long as he can remember had hardened steadily under their 'care'. Soon he couldn't have reached through them even if he'd wanted to, and now he can imagine no reason on earth why he would want to. He's confident that he can act like a pro when necessary; hopefully even Maddie won't notice anything amiss on the next of her infrequent calls to his vid-phone.

Two days to get through.

Bloody hell.

The club he goes to that night is more his style: dark and impersonal. The volume of the music discourages the concept of conversation, even if its patrons conceived of such a thing.

At strategic locations all-but-naked women gyrate around poles, bathed in light of a very different nature to the radiance of the morning. They're indifferent to his eyes on them, their expressions of arousal as professional as a receptionist's smile, but their bodies are alluring.

It's been too long since Helen's submission to his insistent lust. Need surges in his groin.

Doubtless in such a place there are convenient arrangements, but where's the challenge in that?

The credit chip stood him in good stead in a decent clothes shop. He looks good, and knows it.

There's a dance-floor, and he can move in a way that draws female eyes. T'ai chi has honed his natural gracefulness, and he responds to rhythm as though he's a part of it.

Soon it's a question not of _if_ but _which_. Not that it matters much; the pleasure is all that counts.

The victim he eventually selects is quick on the uptake, he'll give her that. It isn't as though the alleyway outside the fire door has a particularly good view of the night sky after all, even if there weren't clouds across it.

She's petite – he prefers petite women – and soon her thighs are wrapped around him. Her half-indignant gasps as his rapidly mounting frenzy slams her repeatedly against the wall shatter like crystal against the duranium barricade of his indifference. So does her cheated wail as, having taken his pleasure, he pulls away, leaving her with no more feeling than a discarded condom.

He doesn't go back into the club. He vaults the wall into the alley instead, just for the hell of it. Her screamed epithets follow him and mean absolutely nothing.

There are other clubs and other women. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, maybe it's roofed with bad ones. He'll enjoy the scenery for a while.

At one point in his wanderings he passes the church. At this hour it should be dark, but there's the small glow of a single light inside – as though some damn fool insomniac were still up and praying on his knees for the soul of a stranger.

He curses himself for the wayward thought. At a guess it's just a security light, kept burning to discourage opportunist thieves and vandals, but still he swerves to pass by on the other side of the street. Heaven has no power over him, tonight or any other night, and as for his soul, well, the transaction's already signed and sealed. The day after tomorrow he'll join the rest of the damned, but he has a little over twenty-four hours left and he's not going to spend it looking for salvation.

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><p><strong>All reviews received with sincere gratitude!<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**_Second Twenty-Four_**

Consciousness returns to him slowly.

He's in the middle of a tangle of limbs. Apparently he's had a busy night.

Both of the female faces that eventually look back at him with the same bewildered lack of recognition seem equally surprised. Fortunately they don't seem particularly displeased, and they're apparently amenable to following up the busy night with a busy morning. He doesn't know their names and they're certainly not going to find out his, but by the time they finally take their leave they're all on exceptionally good terms with each other's bodies.

Unsurprisingly, it's as much as he can do now to crawl into the shower. He's too tired to stand; he subsides onto the floor and lets the water course over him, leaning sideways for just long enough to rub shampoo wearily into his hair. After that, he just sits there looking blankly at his own reflection until the condensation obscures it. He tells himself that what he feels is satiation, but it feels horribly like despair.

He missed breakfast, of course. When he's recovered somewhat, he goes out to find a café.

The food's better than he expected. He tucks himself into a corner from where he can observe. It feels safer, having his back protected.

The bacon is salty and strong. It's a reality in a world that has somehow faded away from him, and he tears into the sandwich with gusto, wolfing it.

There's a pretty young woman sitting just opposite him. Her hair is the fairest possible blonde; the sun isn't shining today, but at a guess sunlight would make it shine like platinum. Just as he has done, she's tucked herself into a corner, and he's noticed her ceaseless vigilance. Now and again their glances have flickered across each other cautiously. He notices she's watching the way he eats, but her gaze doesn't convey disgust but …

…_speculation._

She's ordered a soft drink. When the glass is put down in front of her she waits till he's looking in her direction again and then pulls it towards her rather than lifting it. Her fingers are held stiffly, as though she's not used to using her thumb. After a moment, and with another wary glance around to make sure no-one but he is watching, she lifts the glass to her mouth. She uses both hands, and she doesn't tilt the glass immediately to drink; for just a second, she holds it against her chin and drops her tongue into it.

Next second, she's drinking in the normal way, and looking out of the window as though finding the passers-by of enough interest to hold her casual attention. She doesn't remember he exists. She didn't note the tiny tilt of his head or the way he pulled his plate just a little closer by putting just his fingers flat on it and dragging.

Their eyes don't meet again. When he's finished he stands up and leaves without a glance in her direction. She's reading something on a PADD, probably a book. There's no reason why she should look up when he leaves, or when he turns on the pavement outside to walk away as though he hasn't a care in the world.

He slips back to the hotel. He has nowhere else to go, though he detours through a park, where the daffodils are just a little past their best. His mother has always been fond of daffodils; clumps of them ring the garden at home, though the gardener complains annually about the bother of tying them up when flowering is over, and Malcolm suspects that Reed Senior viscerally dislikes anything so gay and flaunting. Thoughts of his parents bring a vague feeling that he should contact them, but it's of short duration. He knows that Maddie obdurately passes on any items of news about the Prodigal Son during her visits, and thus hearing from the miscreant in person is probably quite superfluous – even if Maddie does nag him with monotonous regularity that Mum would like to hear from him. At some point he'll write to Aunt Sherrie, who has always valued his letters and would like to receive them oftener than she does. The fact that eighty percent of his text is outright invention and the remainder obfuscation is neither here nor there; after all, he's hardly in a position to tell her the truth. She's had heart problems lately, and finding out that her favourite nephew has taken up a career as a spy (with the odd bit of sabotage here and there, and maybe the occasional murder thrown in now and again just to liven things up) would probably finish her off altogether.

Then, the hotel room again – even bleaker and lonelier than he remembers it. The clock has picked up speed now, and destiny is rushing towards him. Part of him wants to put out a hand to ward it off, and part of him wants to be done with this misery of waiting. The sword is suspended above his head on a silken thread, and it's time it fell and impaled him.

An hour's nap, which he desperately needs, does little to refresh him. It's just brought Zero Hour that little bit closer.

He can't stay here; the walls are suffocating him. If he put the television on he'd put his fist through it.

There's a pub a short walk away (a 'bar' they call it over here, he reminds himself wryly; the daffodils have taken him back too many years). Yesterday's intake of alcohol has flushed itself out of his system, not that it helped much when it was in there. He's stone cold sober, and at a guess he'd better still be so when he presents himself for duty tomorrow morning. Still, just one beer won't hurt; he can linger over it in some obscure corner and watch real people come and go, while he slides closer and closer to the abyss…

The evening is closing in fast when he leaves the hotel. It's been a dingy day. The sun didn't break through once and it's gone now, leaving the city to the tender mercies of the night. It's pouring with rain, too. He has no umbrella and doesn't care.

He walks rapidly down the street, and finds the bar. The lights from the window are reflected in the puddles. Inside, everyone seems to be having a splendid time; the sound of laughter spills out through the door as someone opens it to go in. He only has to step forward and follow.

He can't.

After a moment he turns and walks away. He carries on walking because he has nothing else to do, not because he has anywhere to go.

It should be a surprise when he eventually finds himself standing outside the church. It's closed and locked and dark. So he doesn't bother knocking, but stands motionless in front of the door, hands thrust into the pockets of his ruined coat. His head is bowed. The rain runs out of his saturated hair and drips down his face, but he can't feel.

"Would you care for a cup of tea?"

Bloody hell, the Section should start recruiting among the clergy; this chap can move like a shadow. And yet it's more than likely that he simply walked up like anyone else would, and the soon-to-be Section operative was simply too sunk in his own self-pity to hear him.

_Better not pull that trick too often. The next time could be the last._

"No questions, I promise you." The voice is deep and kind, its accent unmistakably Jamaican in origin. "No tricks. Just a cup of tea. When you want to leave, you can leave."

He follows, because he has nowhere else to go. It's not far, just the next block: a flat like all the others, reached by a stairway that's smelly and grimy and poorly-lit.

The priest opens the door of his flat, after shaking the worst of the wet off his umbrella in the stairwell. He goes into the bathroom and brings out a towel, and after that produces a set of clean if faded clothing that was probably donated to charity. Then, leaving Malcolm in the small lounge as if they've known one another for years, he moves calmly into the little kitchen and sets about making tea.

Slowly the Englishman starts stripping off his soaked clothes. It's hardly polite to leave them in a sodden heap on the carpet, so he picks them up and takes them into the bathroom, where he drops them into the bath to let them drain for a while; then, wrapping himself in the towel, he sits gingerly on the edge of the smaller of the two shabby armchairs and begins rubbing himself dry.

He's just in the process of donning the clothes when his host reappears. They don't fit very well – the shirt in particular hangs loosely on his slight frame – but his appearance is the last thing on his mind right now.

He watches the priest lay down the tray, with its pieces of worn china, none of which match. There is a packet of biscuits; he heard the sound of them being opened, and can guess that they're a luxury held in reserve for the benefit of visitors.

"Please. Relax."

The curtains are open, and his host draws them to shut out the darkness and the cold before switching on a side-lamp, which introduces a softer light into the room. It's more forgiving of the clutter, and deals kindly with the unmistakable signs of age, wear and poverty.

"You don't mind a little music?"

He doesn't. Right now he doesn't mind anything. Wrapping the damp towel around his neck to absorb the drips from his sodden hair, he sits down again and picks up a cup and saucer. The tea is hot and sweet, and makes him aware for the first time of how very cold he is.

The music is obviously a favourite; the chip is already in the player, which like everything else in the room has seen considerably better days. But for all its age and battered condition, the sound reproduction is exquisite. The single crystal notes of the piano fall like snowflakes into the still air.

_'Spiegel im Spiegel'. _He knows it, every note of it. He's even played it, long ago, back in the high, echoing music room of his senior school; Alan Lawley would sometimes consent to play the viola part, when he was in the mood. Lawley went on to play in the Royal Philharmonic, and travelled all over the world, but he remarked on more than one occasion that young Reed had a decent touch on the piano and could make something of himself if he practised more….

'Make something of himself'…

And this is what he's made of himself, finally: a spy in the service of a foreign government, a soon-to-be saboteur and assassin. Estranged from his family, without ties, without roots, without friends.

Without hope.

The cup and saucer fall to the floor, which wasn't what he'd intended, and he's sorry for the mess, but suddenly he's on his knees beside the man seated in the other chair, and great heaving sobs rack him as he presses his face into the worn black cassock.

"I have to … I'm so sorry … I have to…"

"I'm sure you do." The hand strokes tenderly across the back of his head.

"I gave my word. That matters, doesn't it?"

"More than anything in the world."

He cries for a while longer, because he'd so much rather it wasn't true.

And yet it _is_ true, so slowly his sobs diminish. It's unbefitting a Reed and an Englishman to break down so utterly, but then he's disgraced his family name and is hardly likely to bestow lustre on the land of his birth by any of his future deeds, so maybe it's just a little forgivable.

When he's quiet again, he feels no immediate compulsion to move. The hand is still stroking his hair, the contact reaffirming his humanity in a way that none of the frenzied acts of copulation during the past forty-eight hours have done.

"Listen," says the low voice above him. "The music has changed. This is one of my favourite recordings."

He pays attention. It's another piano-led instrumental piece, but not one he recognises.

Neither of them speak till the music ends. Then, "It's called 'And They Have Escaped The Weight of Darkness'."

"Do you think that's possible?" he asks at last, into the black cloth. "Do you think there really is a God?"

The slow smile is audible. "It will be, when the time's right. When you want it badly enough. And as for God, I've always thought it doesn't matter so much if we don't believe in Him, as long as He believes in us."

The words are a gift. If it's not hope, at least it's the possibility that hope may exist; and it's more than he came with, and as much as he can carry away with him.

Malcolm's suddenly deathly tired. It's all he can do to scrub his face clean with a borrowed handkerchief; his embarrassed attempt to clean up the cassock as well is stopped with a gentle gesture. He puts the cup and saucer back on the tray, and mutters an apology for the spilled tea, which is also waved away.

"I've a spare room, if you need one," his host offers softly. "No charge. And your own clothes should be dry by the morning."

The refusal is on the tip of his tongue when he thinks better of it. It would be the act of a boor and an ingrate to insist on leaving. Tonight, perhaps for the last time, he can be human again.

He looks across at the kind, worn, serene brown face of the man opposite him. The priest is no longer young, and living in a neighbourhood like this he's probably had plenty of sad experience of the dark side of human nature. And yet hope survives, enabling him to offer hospitality to a total stranger. If there is no evidence for the existence of God, in this room there is ample evidence for the existence of the human spirit; and maybe that's as close as he'll ever come to believing.

The spare room is shabby but very clean. It's so tiny there's hardly room for a bed, but as he stretches out on the mattress and snuggles down under the worn blankets, he's at peace. The morrow can look after itself.

"Sleep well, son." The whisper through the crack of the door hardly penetrates his mind, which is spiralling down to oblivion.

And the moon which presently comes out from behind a cloud and peers down through the cobwebby glass finds Malcolm sleeping soundly.

At last.

**The End.**

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><p><strong>All reviews received with gratitude!<strong>


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